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“La saison des patrimoines”

La saison des patrimoines

Par Nazarena Lanza, doctorante au Centre Jancques Berque

Le mot « patrimonialisation » est sur les lèvres de tous. Où que je me tourne, je rencontre le mot, l’idée, le projet.Il y a quelques jours, un pécheur m’étonnait en parlant de « désir de sauvegarde du patrimoine de sa culture». L’année passée, en me promenant dans la médina de Fès, j’ai été appâtée par le gérant d’une « pharmacie traditionnelle berbère », mais son magasin se transforma subitement en « temple de remèdes tijani » dès qu’il s’adressa à mon ami sénégalais, supposé être un pèlerin de la confrérie de la Tijaniyya, dont le mausolée se trouve à Fès. Patrimonialisation par le bas, avais-je pensé. En y regardant plus près, qu’est-ce que cela engage ?

Au Maroc comme ailleurs, la « valorisation du patrimoine » a pris la stature d’un enjeu stratégique. L’attrait d’un pays se joue autour de son patrimoine, de comment il est présenté, préservé, réapproprié, « vendu ». Sa valorisation a aussi l’important rôle d’alimenter et rassembler le sentiment d’appartenance de différentes populations sous un même drapeau.

La question de la restitution des oeuvres d’art se maintient dans l’actualité turque

Par  pensionnaire scientifique à l’Institut français d’études anatoliennes, Istanbul.

 

“Il est trois domaines qui ne souffrent pas de la crise économique : les trafics d’arme, de drogue et d’œuvres culturelles”, c’est ainsi que débute le dernier éditorial (27/11/2012, en turc) d’Özgen Acar sur lequel nous rebondissons. La Turquie, dont l’héritage culturel est proverbial, souffre particulièrement de ce dernier type de trafic. Au durcissement de l’arsenal répressif, s’ajoute la multiplication de demandes de restitutions, de la part des autorités turques, d’œuvres aujourd’hui exposées dans divers musées internationaux. Ces requêtes sont à l’origine de nombreuses tensions dont les répercussions se font sentir à tous les niveaux de la coopération internationale.

 

La politique “muséale” de Orhan Pamuk: le manifeste

State museums are so antiquated
Orhan Pamuk
Friday 20 April 2012 22.54 BST

Monumental state treasure-houses such as the Louvre or the Met ignore the stories of the individual. Exhibitions should become ever more intimate and local

I love museums and I am not alone in finding that they make me happier with each passing day. I take museums very seriously, and that sometimes leads me to angry, forceful thoughts. But I do not have it in me to speak about museums with anger.

In my childhood, there were very few museums in Istanbul. Most of them were simply preserved historical monuments or – quite rare outside the western world – they were places with an air of the government office about them.

Later, the small museums in the back streets of European cities led me to realise that museums – just like novels – can also speak for individuals.

That is not to understate the importance of the Louvre, Metropolitan Museum, Topkapı Palace, British Museum, Prado, and Pinacoteca – all of which are veritable treasures of humankind. But I am against these precious monumental institutions being used as blueprints for future museums.

Museums should explore and uncover the universe and humanity of the new and modern man emerging especially from increasingly wealthy non-western nations.

The aim of big, state-sponsored museums, on the other hand, is to represent the state. This is neither a good nor an innocent objective.

I would like to outline my thoughts in order:

1 Large national museums such as the Louvre and the Hermitage took shape and turned into essential tourist destinations, alongside the opening of royal and imperial palaces to the public. These institutions, now national symbols, have presented the story of a nation – in other words, history – as much more important than the stories of individuals. This is unfortunate: the stories of individuals are much better suited to displaying the depths of our humanity.

2 We can see that the transitions from palaces to national museums, and from epics to novels, are parallel processes. Epics are like palaces, and speak of the heroics of old kings who lived in them. National museums, then, should be like novels; but they are not.

3 We are sick and tired of museums that try to construct historical narratives of a society, community, team, nation, state, people, company or species. We all know that the ordinary, everyday stories of individuals are richer, more humane and much more joyful than the stories of colossal cultures.

4 Demonstrating the wealth of Chinese, Indian, Mexican, Iranian or Turkish history and culture is not an issue – it must, of course, be done, but it is not difficult to do. The real challenge is to use museums to tell, with the same brilliance, depth and power, the stories of the individual human beings living in these countries.

5 The measure of a museum’s success should not be its ability to represent a state, nation or company, or a particular history. It should be its capacity to reveal the humanity of individuals.

6 It is imperative that museums become smaller, more individualistic, and cheaper. This is the only way that they will ever tell stories on a human scale. Big museums with their wide doors call upon us to forget our humanity and embrace the state and its human masses. This is why millions outside the western world are afraid of going to museums.

7 The aim of present and future museums must not be to represent the state, but to recreate the world of single human beings – the same human beings who have laboured under ruthless oppressions for hundreds of years.

8 The resources that are channelled into monumental, symbolic museums should be diverted into smaller museums that tell the stories of individuals. These resources should also be used to encourage and support people in turning their own small homes and stories into exhibition spaces.

9 If objects are not uprooted from their environs and their streets, but are situated with care and ingenuity in their own natural homes, they will already portray their own stories.

10 Monumental buildings that dominate neighbourhoods and entire cities do not bring out our humanity; on the contrary, they quash it. It is more humane to be able to imagine modest museums that turn the neighbourhoods and streets, and the homes and shops nearby, into elements of the exhibition.

11 The future of museums is inside our own homes.

12 The picture is, in fact, simple:

Epics v Novels

Representation v Expression

Monuments v Homes

Histories v Stories

Nation v Person

Groups, Teams v the Individual

Large and expensive v Small and cheap

• The Museum of Innocence, Istanbul, opens on 27 April.

Translated by Ekin Oklap

Surp Pirgiç Ermeni hastahanesinin 180. yili

Anlatılan Osmanlı Ermenilerinin 180 yıllık öyküsüdür

Yedikule Surp Pırgiç Ermeni Hastanesi’nin 180. kuruluş yıldönümü vesilesiyle açılan ‘Osmanlı’dan Bugüne 180 Yıllık Bir Öykü: Surp Pırgiç Ermeni Hastanesi’ sergisinin kataloğunda yer alan görseller eşliğinde, Osmanlı Ermenilerinin 180 yıllık öyküsünü sunuyoruz. Devami http://www.agos.com.tr/anlatilan-osmanli-ermenilerinin-180-yillik-oykusudur-1720.html

Le mécène, un acteur méconnu de la ville

Cet article a pour ambition de proposer une réflexion sur l’homme d’affaires - collectionneur - donateur - créateur de musée en termes d’idéal-type. Il se propose de repérer les logiques qui le guident, d’analyser les impacts de ses actions. http://transcontinentales.revues.org/374.

La ville d’Istanbul sert de cadre à cette réflexion : elle se distingue en effet par une vitalité surprenante dans le domaine des événements culturels internationaux menés à l’initiative d’un secteur « à but non lucratif » en pleine croissance et par un nombre considérable de musées privés fondés dans les dix dernières années. Fondations privées et grandes familles émergentes ont ensemble transformé le paysage de la ville d’Istanbul, se donnant pour missions non seulement d’enrichir l’offre culturelle et artistique pour les élites stambouliotes, mais aussi d’inscrire Istanbul dans le réseau des métropoles mondiales, et de contribuer ainsi à en faire l’emblème d’une Turquie appartenant résolument au bloc européen, occidental

Nora Seni, « Le mécène, un acteur méconnu de la ville », Transcontinentales [En ligne], 7 | 2009, document 6, mis en ligne le 30 mars 2011, consulté le 08 juin 2012.